Why “AI Productivity Gains” Is the Wrong Pitch for Every Stakeholder Above You
Pitching AI productivity gains will not move your CMO, CFO, or legal team. Reframe the metric per audience to defend headcount and unlock budget.
The Content Strategist
Pitching AI productivity gains will not move your CMO, CFO, or legal team. Reframe the metric per audience to defend headcount and unlock budget.
AI makes content cheap to produce. What separates brands that matter is editorial judgment. Why every content team in 2026 needs a managing editor.
The editorial calendar fills up, and the first few pieces of your newly launched content program land well. You’re off to a good start, and the team feels momentum and energy. Then, somewhere around the 18-month mark, quality dips. Deadlines become aspirational, at best. The aims that felt so clear at launch become harder to…
The Future of Content Belongs to the Tastemakers Polished copy is easy now with AI. You can quickly write blog posts, social campaigns, video scripts, thought leadership essays, white papers, and podcasts at scale across every imaginable format and channel. And yet, after the content is published, it’s quickly forgotten. What now separates authentic, smart…
For the past two decades, SEOs and content marketers played a fairly predictable game: Optimize for rankings, maximize share of voice against direct competitors, chase CTRs. Success meant earning the click and driving traffic back to your site. That model is breaking down. In AI-driven discovery environments, your content is no longer competing with other…
When I first started working in content marketing 15 years ago, the scope of what that work entailed was relatively narrow: blog posts, website copy, email newsletters, and the occasional e-book or oddball infographic. With the TikTok-ification of the internet, short-form video became a table-stakes part of the mix. Most of these assets lived squarely…
There’s nothing quite like being asked to “prove content ROI” when you’re smack in the middle of presenting next quarter’s campaign roadmap. You scramble to explain how that blog series probably helped a few deals move forward. You gesture vaguely at that product explainer video that likely nudged some prospects along. You say “engagement” a…
RIP, Google’s ten blue links. You weren’t perfect, but at least you were predictable. Google’s new AI Mode, currently in the midst of a phased rollout, is likely the beginning of the end of the SERP’s 20-year reign. In general, this new era of AI Search is nothing short of — to borrow a phrase…
Is SEO dead? In March, I argued it was dying. Now leading VC firms like a16z are making the same case. The foundation of the $80 billion SEO market is cracking and something new is being born: LLM Optimization (LLMO). And the companies that understand this shift first will own a massive competitive advantage. The…